


wax and wane

by jungwooed



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Blood and Injury, Coming of Age, Dissociation, Domesticity, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lightly Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Making Out, Mention Of Homophobia, Time Skips, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, potentially unsettling brain imagery, renjun-centric, set in the US, unidentified mental health issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23138353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungwooed/pseuds/jungwooed
Summary: Renjun was eighteen when he came to terms with the fact that he had fallen in love. Twice and at the same time.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Comments: 32
Kudos: 285





	wax and wane

**Author's Note:**

> just to preface this lil fic: 
> 
> -there is depiction of violence that starts at "Before he could say anything else" and ends at "Renjun was paralyzed." If this is something that is triggering or makes you feel uncomfy, skip over it. It is far from being the most essential scene in the story.  
> -this fic has a lot of time skips, and during those periods of missing time, the relationships between characters are still evolving. keep this in mind so the changes in attitude don't seem so drastic.  
> -enjoy, please! this took me a while to write, and I'm happy to have it off my back

Renjun sat on a tall stool, staring down at his eleventh birthday cake. 

He studied the candles. They were candy pink, wax beading off of them in perfect gumdrop drips. He watched one slide down, onto the cartoon Moomin drawn in frosting, pink sprinkles marking the rosy tints of his cheeks. 

His momma whispered in his ear. She told him to make a wish, to blow out the candles before they melted all over the cake. 

Renjun blew them out without wishing. He blew them out without thinking. His momma’s breath tingled against the shell of his ear, and he rubbed the tickle away. 

He wondered suddenly if this was a dream. He looked down at his hands. They were small and dotted with yellow paint, the leftovers of his latest art project. On the back of his right hand was his birthmark. Renjun ghosted his fingers over it, and his vision swam. 

“Puppy, why are you crying?” His momma laughed her tinkling laugh and reached over to brush her thumbs against his cheeks. 

Renjun flinched away. 

“Don’t touch me.” 

“What?”

“Don’t touch me, please.”

“Okay, Puppy,” his momma gave him a tight-lipped smile. He didn’t miss the strange look from his brother across the table. “Do you want Moomin’s head or tail?” 

“Head, please,” Renjun said quietly as he wiped the tears from his face. He was surprised to find tear tracks leading down to a fat drop underneath his chin. He scooped it up with his finger and dropped it into Sicheng’s milk. 

“Ew, gross!” His face twisted up in disgust. “What the hell, little bro?”

Renjun felt the world come back to him, and he giggled around a mouthful of cake. 

\---

When Renjun was fourteen, he got his first nosebleed. 

He had been playing soccer in P.E. when it happened. One moment Renjun was standing in front of his team’s goal, hands placed halfheartedly in front of his chest to stop any incoming balls, and the next he was laying on his back on the turf. 

“Huang!” His teacher shouted from the other side of the field. “Where the hell is your brain at, huh?” 

Renjun opened his eyes, squinting at the bright light. In front of him was a face, a very familiar face. It was Lee Jeno. He looked at him with panicked eyes, and his mouth was moving but Renjun couldn’t hear a single word. The ring in his ears was reaching its crescendo. 

Lee Jeno pulled him up from the ground and helped him stagger to the nurse’s office. Renjun glanced back to see a soccer ball in the net, splattered with red. 

The nurse determined that Renjun’s nose was not broken. He was glad of this fact, he knew it would worry his momma to death. Unfortunately, Nurse Kim had to leave her office for ice, and left Jeno to play watchdog while she was away. 

“Does it hurt a lot?” Jeno asked from his spot on the couch in the corner of the room. 

Renjun looked up and scowled, “you sent a soccer ball flying at my face at the velocity of a shooting star. Yes, it fucking hurts.” 

“You need to keep your head down, the blood will run down your throat.”

“You’re really good at apologies,” Renjun mumbled sarcastically, tilting his head back down to the floor. The tiles were blue and white, checkered together in a nonsensical pattern that made Renjun’s palms itch. 

“Goalies are supposed to _ block _ the ball, dumbass. It’s not my fault you were up in the fucking clouds.”

“Shut up, Lee. Can’t you just leave? I think I can manage without your insufferable, mouthbreathing ass for a few minutes.”

“Hey, I’m not a mouthbreather!”

“I sit next to you in literature. If anyone were to know you’re a mouthbreather, it would be me. You’re a drooler, too, in case you didn’t know.” 

Jeno gasped, “I am  _ not.” _

“You are!” Renjun feels a smile creeping onto his face. “You practically start foaming at the mouth whenever you look at Na Jaemin.”

Jeno was silent for a moment. Renjun must have hit a nerve. 

“What’s your problem?” 

“What’s my problem?” Renjun kept his focus on the tile. “You. You are my problem, Lee Jeno.”

“I haven’t done anything to you,” Jeno’s voice had an edge sharper than a razorblade. “Maybe if you weren’t such an insufferable prick all the time, people would actually like you.”

“And maybe if you weren’t such a goddamn stupid, mouthbreathing stoner, Na Jaemin would actually look your way,” Renjun sneered. “He told me himself he likes boys with  _ brains _ , Jeno. Your brawn is failing you.”

“Is that… true?” Jeno asked, the edge gone and replaced with the slightest bit of hurt. Renjun decided to use this vulnerability to his advantage. 

“Of course. What, do you think a boy like Jaemin would be interested in anyone whose worth depends on how well they can kick a ball?” Renjun paused to laugh, perhaps a little too cruelly. “No, he thinks you’re pathetic. And so do I.”

Jeno held his gaze for a beat. Renjun watched him breathe deeply; it was a long, cold draft through his nose. 

Before he could say anything else, there was a fist in Renjun’s hair. He felt the harsh sting in his scalp, and a gasp catch in his throat. 

“You know what? I’m not your problem, Huang Renjun,” Jeno said in his ear. “You are.”

Renjun felt blood trickling down his throat. He spluttered and tasted iron as speckles of red burst out of his mouth like fireworks. He reached up and grabbed Jeno’s arm. He clawed at it desperately, silently pleading him to stop. Blood was dripping down his esophagus and into his stomach, it was breathed into his lungs. Jeno gripped his hair tighter and held his head back, his eyes staring down into Renjun’s. He gurgled inhumanly as a bubble of blood and spit rose to his lips and popped. He felt tears beading in his eyes and sliding down his cheeks. Jeno grinned, and Renjun was paralyzed. 

“Who’s the drooler now?” Jeno released his hold on Renjun’s hair and walked out the door, stealing a root beer lollipop off of Nurse Kim’s desk on the way out. 

\---

Sometimes, Renjun felt like he was separated from the rest of the world by a sheet of glass. 

He peered through his looking glass like a glaze-eyed toddler watching cartoons. He felt numb, docile, dormant. He felt like he was sucking up xanax through a straw like it was strawberry milk. 

When he was little, Sicheng would take him to the aquarium on summer days that were too hot for being outside. Renjun’s favorite was the Japanese spider crab room. The tank’s walls were floor to ceiling, and it was always dark. A few blue lights lit up their strange, spindly bodies. They climbed on top of each other, fought with snapping claws and unwieldy movements. The spider crabs looked like something out of a nightmare. They were foreign, unsettling to look at. Sicheng would leave him there, alone in the blue glow, and retire to the adjoining gift shoppe. 

_ “They give me the creeps, Junnie,” he said one day on the drive back home. “I don’t think I understand why you like them so much.”  _

_ Sicheng smiled and ruffled his hair. He’d stopped at Dairy Queen to buy Renjun a chocolate-dipped cone and an order of fries.  _

_ “I dunno, they’re cool,” Renjun replied, a ring of chocolate and cream around his mouth. “Did you know crabs have brains smaller than the tip of a pencil?”  _

_ “I didn’t. How’d you learn that, smartypants?”  _

_ “The guy at the aquarium told me.” _

_ “A guy at the aquarium was talking to you?”  _

_ “Mhm! He’s, like, a crab genius,” Renjun mused. “He told me that Japanese spider crabs can outlive humans!”  _

_ “Really? Well... that’s sort of terrifying,” Sicheng let out a nervous laugh.  _

_ “A lot of them don’t live that long, though.”  _

_ “Why’s that?” Sicheng reached over to steal a fry.  _

_ “When they get too big for their shells, they need to leave and grow a new one,” Renjun shoved Sicheng’s wandering hand away. “Without their shells, anything can kill them.” _

_ “Yeah? Good thing there’s no sharks in the crab tank, am I right?”  _

_ “They eat each other, Chengie.”  _

_ “The man at the aquarium told you that?”  _

_ “Yeah, so?” Renjun huffed. “I’m nine years old.”  _

_ “Next time, I’ll stay and watch the crabs with you, okay?”  _

_ “Okay.”  _

They hadn’t visited the aquarium since then. Sicheng resorted to taking him to the local art museum (it had spectacular air conditioning). 

Years later, Renjun still thought about the spider crabs. Those bizarre creatures with tiny brains, unable to comprehend emotion as humans know it. Renjun thinks about how they fight, with their legs wrapped around each other. He thinks about how it doesn’t look much different than when they mate. 

Renjun peered at the world through his own personal looking glass. It was just like at the aquarium. The only question is: who was the observer, and who the crab.

\---

Renjun never really paid any attention to Na Jaemin before. He was popular, he knew that much. Jaemin was good at just about everything: sports, academics, music, visual arts. All the teachers adored him, and so did everybody else. Especially Lee Jeno. Jaemin practically had that boy on a leash. 

The last place Renjun expected to see Na Jaemin was at his aunt and uncle’s greasy spoon diner at 3:00 AM on a Wednesday. 

He was a sophomore in high school, right at the awkward peak of puberty where little spots of stubble start to randomly appear and sexual frustration is on the rise. Renjun couldn’t live a day without hearing his best friend rant about Mark Lee’s (probably fictitious) abs. He refrained from saying anything, if only to avoid quashing Donghyuck’s blatant adoration. 

It seemed that the nasty effects of puberty missed out on Na Jaemin, however. Where there should be a smelly, pimply, orc-like beast, there sat a pretty boy sipping on a vanilla milkshake. His hair was ruffled and his eyes bleary, like he had just woken up from deep sleep. The pale yellow lights illuminated him like a halo. It was unfair. They always made Renjun look like he had jaundice. 

“Renjun, go see if that boy wants something to eat,” his auntie said in rushed mandarin and jerked her chin towards Jaemin. 

Even at 3:00 AM, the diner was hopping. It was a popular spot for motorcycle gangs and late-night drug deals. His aunt would never send away customers, no matter how shady. As long as they kept ordering, the Huangs turned the other cheek.

“Can’t you take that table?” Renjun whined.

“Why? Are you shy?” 

“No! It’s just… he goes to my school,” Renjun tried to explain but his aunt just pointed to the table with her waitressing pen.

“Go now. He seems like a nice boy, Renjunnie,” she was rushing away to check on a rowdy group of drunkards on the other side of the diner. “You could do with a few more friends, anyways.” 

“Auntie!” 

She ignored him, and he huffed out a sigh. He quickly slipped a smile onto his face and made his way over to Na Jaemin. 

He was zoned out, the straw for his milkshake resting on his lips and a pen poised in his hand. He was doodling on a napkin absentmindedly, moving the pen in gentle circles, swirls, and dips as he stared out the window, out at the rain. 

“Excuse me, sir,” Renjun cringed, “would you like to order anything else? We have a few seasonal winter soups if you need warming up. They come with complementary bread rolls.” 

Jaemin looked away from the window and straight into Renjun’s eyes. He set the pen down and smiled back, a genuine smile that had Renjun pinned to the back wall. 

“Do you have any french fries?” 

“Of course we have french fries, this is a diner,” Renjun said with a light laugh. “Would you like a small, medium, or large?” 

“I’ll have a large if you share it with me.” 

Renjun was stunned. Sure, customers had made similar propositions to him before, but he wasn’t expecting it from  _ the  _ Na Jaemin. His forwardness was unsettling. But at the same time, there was something oddly refreshing about the sincerity in his smile and the joyfulness of his demeanor. The night diner was where people came to die, but Jaemin embodied life. “I don’t know if I can do that, I’m on the job.”

“You’re working at 3:00 in the morning!” Jaemin said incredulously. “That’s practically child abuse, Renjun.” 

“Oh, so you remember my name.”

“How could I forget the boy that almost lost all his cranial fluid to a soccer ball in P.E.?” 

“That was Jeno’s fault,” Renjun gritted his teeth slightly at the thought. “And it was also a year ago, so you can drop it.” 

“Just ask your boss if you can take a twenty minute break,” Jaemin looked at him pleadingly. “I need some company.” 

Renjun looked around the diner. It was emptying out, even the late-night clientele trickled out the door as coffee and cocaine wore from their systems. The counters needed to be cleaned, but Renjun could do that at the end of his shift. 

“Let me get you those fries first, okay?” Renjun said nervously, straightening his uniform before retreating back to the kitchen. Jaemin nodded and opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but closed it with a slight shake of his head. He picked up his pen and scribbled on the napkin. 

“Auntie! We need a large order of fries,” Renjun called into the kitchen. He slipped his apron off and hung it on one of the hooks on the broom closet door. 

“And where exactly do you think you’re sneaking off to?” His aunt yells back scathingly.

“Just… doing some good customer service,” his aunt raised a brow at that, and Renjun realized he should elaborate. “The boy at table four. He asked if I would keep him company for fifteen minutes or so.”

“The handsome one?” She asked nonchalantly, flipping the fries in the fryer a few times. 

“I mean, I guess,” Renjun cursed his bashfulness. 

“You can be done for the night, Renjunnie,” she said shortly as she salted the fries. “Your mother is already furious at me for letting you work so late. Make sure she knows that I let you off the hook early.” His aunt sent him a wink before handing over the basket of fries. Renjun could see the grease soaking into the paper liner. He cringed. He wondered if he smelled like oil and grime and bleach. He wondered if he looked as decrepit as the old biker sipping black coffee at the counter. 

“Could you… make me a cup of tea, Auntie?” 

“Do you have the money for it?”

“Um, well, you could take it out of my pay--”

“I’m kidding, Puppy. Go before the fries get cold.” 

“Thank you, Auntie,” Renjun called behind his shoulder as he rushed out of the kitchen. Jaemin was in the same position as before: scribbling mindlessly with his eyes trained out the window. 

Renjun slipped into the booth across from him, setting the basket of french fries in the center of the table. 

“Order up,” he chirped to get Jaemin’s attention away from the rain. 

Jaemin startled out of his reverie, and Renjun felt sorry. Jaemin was probably asleep with his eyes open. He still smiled, though. A little bit softer than before, a little bit more dreamy. Renjun lifted a hand to wave, like they weren’t mere feet from each other. Like Renjun wouldn’t be able to reach over and hold his face in his hands. Jaemin waved back and grabbed a fry. 

“These are  _ perfect,”  _ Jaemin moaned out, grabbing another and dipping it into the dregs of his milkshake. 

“My Auntie has perfected the artform that is greasy American food,” Renjun laughed and leaned back in his seat. He sat on his hands to keep himself from biting at his nails.

“Can I ask you something?” Jaemin asked, leaning forward as if there was a thread connecting their chests. Push and pull. Renjun could feel the thread tugging on his heart. 

“Sure.”

“Why does a Chinese family run an American-style diner?” Jaemin picked up five fries and jammed them in his mouth at once. It would be sickening if he didn’t look so handsome doing it. 

“About thirty-six years ago, when my family first moved to the U.S., this was the only place where my Auntie could find work,” Renjun ran his fingertips against the wooden tabletop thoughtfully. “She couldn’t speak English, no one wanted her. Luckily the owner of this place allowed her to work in the kitchen. She’s been here ever since. When the owner died, the whole family pitched in to help her buy this place.”

“That’s amazing,” Jaemin said, his eyebrows scrunched up as he reached for the ketchup bottle. 

“We’re very lucky,” Renjun nodded. 

His Auntie approached the table, her apron askew and her lipstick smudged. She set a steaming cup of tea in front of Renjun. It smelled like bergamot; they must be out of green. He said a small thanks and took a sip, concealing his grimace. At least it would keep him awake for longer.

“There’s another thing I wanted to ask you...” Jaemin stopped meeting Renjun’s eyes, his focus on painting ketchup on the basket of fries in funny loop-de-loops, like a rusty roller coaster. Renjun simply stayed silent, waiting for Jaemin to gather his courage. 

“Are you and Lee Jeno, like, a thing…?” Jaemin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t mean to seem nosy or anything, I'm just… curious.”

Renjun’s eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets. 

“No! Ew, oh god, absolutely not,” Renjun couldn’t help but laugh. It was ugly, coming out in short hiccups and wheezes. He was no Disney princess, his laugh didn’t sound like chiming bells. He probably sounded as bad as their bronchitic patrons, lungs full of gunk leftover from the 80’s. 

“Sorry, I just thought-- you guys always hang out at the back of the school together and I figured something more was going on.”

“You’ve seen us?” Renjun asked, surprised to say the least. He had thought their hideout was foolproof. 

“I wouldn’t have if you guys weren’t so damn loud,” Jaemin chuckled around the straw of his milkshake, which was now a puddle of vanilla milk at the bottom of the glass. “Isn’t it dirty under the football bleachers?”

“It’s only bad during football season and after track meets,” Renjun shrugged. 

“Or you’re just too addicted to care,” Jaemin quipped.

“Shut up,” Renjun glared at Jaemin’s dumb grin. “I could quit smoking if I wanted to.”

“Why don’t you want to?”

Renjun took another sip of tea. Too fast. It was scalding. “Because I like the burn.”

\---

Renjun blinked and he was seventeen. 

He didn’t spend his birthday in front of a moomin birthday cake. Instead, he spent it in front of a red-eyed Lee Jeno beneath the school bleachers. 

He picked up a stray piece of popcorn and held it in his palm, flicking it at Jeno’s stupid, dopey face. 

“That was rude,” Jeno quirked an eyebrow at him, too high to retaliate. 

“That sucks for you,” Renjun quipped, snatching the joint from Jeno’s lips and crushing it into the dirt with his shoe. 

“Aw, Junnie, why’d you have to--”

And, suddenly, Renjun’s lips were on Jeno’s. 

Neither of them could pinpoint exactly when they started their… arrangement. It was an unspoken deal: what happens under the bleachers, stays under the bleachers. It was sort of like fight club, but with more making out. 

Renjun had Jeno’s jacket in a vice grip, his knuckles turning white as he pressed him closer. At first, it hardly constituted a kiss. It was more like Renjun mashing his lips against Jeno’s teeth. But as soon as Jeno’s brain caught up with the situation, his hands moved to Renjun’s waist, and he pressed back against Renjun with equal eagerness. 

Renjun moved his hands to Jeno’s face. He felt the hard lines of his jaw, his cheekbones, the focused furrow of his brows. He smoothed the pads of his fingertips along Jeno’s temples and stroked his eyelids with his thumbs. Jeno sighed through his nose, and the puff of air tickled Renjun’s upper lip. Jeno’s hands were cold under his sweater. 

Soon enough, they were tangled up in one another. Renjun’s legs were asleep from where his knees curled around Jeno’s hips. His lips felt numb, and he didn’t want to let go for fear that it would hurt once he did. He breathed in deep through his nose. Jeno smelled like weed, but he somehow made it inexplicably charming. Jeno’s tongue was in his mouth and it wasn’t romantic. Jeno and Renjun didn’t do romance. They unleashed their teenage frustrations on one another until someone won. They didn’t kiss to love, they kissed for the sick satisfaction. They kissed like it was a sport. 

Jeno shoved Renjun against one of the bleacher supports. His skull hit the metal with a sharp  _ clang _ , but he didn’t mind the pain, not as long as Jeno’s tongue was still in his mouth and the smell of weed was in his nose. Hands fisted his hair and he remembered how Lee Jeno held him just like that in freshman year. This time it was, admittedly, much hotter. 

This round, Renjun won. Jeno was the first to pry his lips off of Renjun and lay his head against his shoulder. 

“Fuck, Renjun.”

Renjun bit the shell of his ear harshly. “Was I worth the lost joint?”

Jeno pulled Renjun down onto the dirt. 

\---

Sometimes, Renjun steps out of his own skin. 

He feels like he’s a stranger to himself. An imposter dropped into the body of Renjun Huang, with all the memories and aches and loves that come with it. 

It doesn’t belong to him. None of it. 

Renjun lays in bed, unable to fall asleep as he feels the overwhelming sensation of wrongness wash over him in waves. It was stripping. He felt himself being eroded, slow and painful. 

He held his hand in front of his face, looking at the silhouette in the soft light of the street lamp outside. It swam in his vision strangely, in and out of focus, elusive as a ghost. 

He thought about his brain. It was the center of his entire being: thought, emotion, pain, and movement. If he were to open his skull and take a look, all he would see is a grotesque mass of grey, black, and red. It would ooze. It would ooze out everything that made him Renjun. The memories of spider crabs would drip along the side, the ability to play piano pooling in the crevices, Jeno’s kisses puddling by the stem. 

Everything always feels so big until you remember it’s just a big chemical cocktail. If you asked Renjun, the brain is the cruelest bartender in existence. 

Renjun sat up and ran his fingers over his lips. They were dry. He could tell because the brain juice told him so. 

He checked his phone, squinting through the bright blue light and seeing the big numbers  _ 2:47  _ gleaming back at him. He only had one notification:

**Jeno Lee**

_ Hey, you up?  _

It was sent an hour and a half ago. Renjun felt his breath catch in his throat. Oh, he was still breathing. That was good. 

**Renjun Huang**

_ mhmm.. what’s up? _

**Jeno Lee**

_ Jus wondering if u wanted to come over? _

_ My parents flight got delayed  _

**Renjun Huang**

_ what does that have to do with me coming over? _

**Jeno Lee**

_ Stop playing dumb, its not cute _

**Renjun Huang**

_ im pretty sure it is, actually _

**Jeno Lee**

_ Are u down or not  _

**Renjun Huang**

_ calm down, tiger _

_ let me put on some shoes _

**Jeno Lee**

_ Jaemin is here btw _

_ He wants me to tell u hes excited to see u _

**Renjun Huang**

_ thats nice of him _

**Jeno Lee**

_ I didnt know you guys were friends _

**Renjun Huang**

_ theres a lot u dont know abt me  _

**Jeno Lee**

_ I can ask him to leave if you wanna like,, _

_ chill _

**Renjun Huang**

_ not in the mood tonight _

**Jeno Lee**

_ Okay _

_ Sorry _

Renjun shut his phone off and placed it in the basket of his bicycle. He had thrown on a pair of sweatpants, a hoodie, and a random pair of sneakers. He left them untied, almost daring them to get caught in the spokes. 

He was starting to feel better. Talking with Jeno seemed to pull his conscience back into his body, where it belonged. The cool wind ruffled his hair and he was finally able to feel that it was really  _ his _ again. His hand remained grounded in this plane of reality, no longer shifting in and out of existence. Renjun allowed himself to smile, and the action cracked open his lips. 

When he arrived at Jeno’s house, the first thing he saw was two boys laying in the grass belly-up. They were laughing, and Renjun could hear the slosh of liquid in a bottle. He threw his bike down onto the sidewalk and ran to them. He allowed himself to feel giddy. He allowed himself to feel all the silly satisfaction of teenage rebellion. 

“Junnie!” Jaemin called to him with a big, dumb grin. Renjun plopped himself right in between them, practically lying on top of Jeno. 

“Ow, Jun, you’re crushing me,” Jeno managed to wheeze out. 

“Dude, he weighs almost nothing,” Jaemin laughed in Renjun’s left ear and Jeno gasped in his right. 

“He’s just being a wussy, don’t mind him,” Renjun said to Jaemin. To spite Jeno, Renjun rolled over so he was laying on Jaemin chest-to-chest and eye-to-eye. Jeno’s jaw dropped when Jaemin brought his hands up to Renjun’s waist. His thumbs stroked the patch of exposed skin from where Renjun’s hoodie had ridden up. Renjun hoped he was doing an okay job of hiding his flustered state with an uncharacteristic air of coyness. 

“Can you guys like… tone it down while I’m right here?” Jeno mumbled, clearly annoyed. Renjun felt proud of himself. 

“If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen,” Renjun teased as he rolled off of Jaemin. Admittedly, the heat was too much for him to handle. 

“Do you want some orange vodka? It was all I had other than white wine,” Jeno wrinkled his nose in disgust. Renjun would honestly much prefer the wine, but he just nodded and held his hand out to take the bottle. 

“Yeah, pass it here.” 

“Be warned, the orange almost makes it worse,” Jaemin giggled into the sleeve of his hoodie. Renjun takes a large swig of the bottle to distract himself from the fast-paced beating of his heart. His esophagus burned, but he still felt the suffocating pressure on his chest. Alcohol is highly overrated, in Renjun’s opinion. 

He didn’t need an escape. If anything, he needed homecoming. 

“This is fucking disgusting. I’d rather use this to water my plants,” Renjun grimaced and handed the bottle back to Jeno as Jaemin broke into a fit of laughter. 

“Told you he’d like the white wine better, Jen,” Jaemin lifted his hands to rest them under his head, still laying belly-up on the grass. “He’s classy like that.” 

“Junnie isn’t classy, Jaem,” Jeno scoffed. “I once watched him eat a KFC drumstick off the floor.”

“I had the munchies,” Renjun shrugged.

“You’re gross,” Jeno shoved a handful of hot cheetos into his mouth. 

“I can’t believe you kiss that mouth,” Jaemin was suddenly pressed against his side and his breath was tickling the shell of his ear. Renjun reached up and rubbed the itch away, his knuckles grazing the tip of Jaemin’s nose. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he whispered harshly, pushing him away. Jaemin cackled to himself from a foot away on the grass. 

“I’m a  _ fantastic _ kisser,” Jeno said, a few cheeto crumbs spewing from his mouth. Renjun cringed; maybe Jaemin had a point. “You can come find out for yourself if you’d like.”

“I think I’m good.”

“Your loss,” Jeno shook the remainder of the bag into his mouth. Renjun tried (rather unsuccessfully) to suppress any intrusive thoughts about how attractive Jeno’s Adam's apple was. 

“How long are we gonna stay out here?” Renjun asked after a long stretch of silence. A cloud had passed over the moon, and he felt colder in the darkness. He couldn’t suppress a series of shivers.

“We were gonna watch the sunrise. It’s in an hour, but if you’re cold we can go inside.”

“It’s cloudy.” 

“So?” 

“The sunrise probably won’t be that great behind all that cloud cover.”

“Oh,” Jeno said, sounding so disappointed that Renjun felt like he had just deprived a puppy of his treat. 

“Maybe we can watch from inside?” Jaemin spoke up. His voice travelled through the tiny opening where his hoodie wasn’t cinched around his face. “Junnie is shivering.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jeno said mopily. Renjun decided that Jeno was a sad drunk. 

They trudged inside the house, only realizing the heaviness of their limbs after getting up from lying on the earth. Renjun heard Jaemin’s knees crack as he got up, and Jeno stumbled to the front door. He sure had great taste in company. 

“Needa pee,” mumbled Jeno mere seconds after they had collapsed onto his couch. 

“Then go pee, stupid,” Renjun laughed at his intoxicated state and shoved him off the cushions. 

“He’s gonna pee all over the floor,” Jaemin said with a grimace. Renjun laughed and turned his face towards Jaemin to respond, only to have his words die in his throat at the realization that they are so close he could feel Jaemin’s breath on his upper lip. 

“Renjun?” Jaemin asked, his eyes flitting down to look at Renjun’s lips. He hoped to god they weren’t quivering. 

Renjun swallowed. He really tried to respond properly, but the words got lost on the way to his tongue and all that came out was a quiet, “humh?” 

“When was the last time someone told you you’re beautiful?” Jaemin ran his pointer finger down Renjun’s cheek, starting at the outer corner of his eye and curving down to his chin. Renjun reminded himself that Jaemin was so, so drunk. 

“Jeno,” Renjun breathed. “He was high and lonely, so I don’t think he really meant it.” 

“You’re both absolute fools, you know that?” 

“Why?” 

“Because you’re too dense to see the things that are right in front of you” 

“I see you,” Renjun defended. “You’re here, and I see you.”

“Do you really? Sometimes I feel as though you’re looking straight through me.” 

“No. You make everything feel solid again,” Renjun said earnestly, gripping the loose fabric of Jaemin’s hoodie. “I feel here. I am me, I am here, my name is Renjun, and I had a Moomin birthday cake when I was eleven.” 

Jaemin held him closer, letting Renjun’s face fall into the crook of his neck. “Of course you are. What else would you be?” 

“Nothing,” Renjun mumbled.

“I think you should get some sleep. Do you wanna ask Jeno if he has a bed you could use?” 

“No. I’m comfy.” 

Jaemin shifted so that they were both lying horizontal on the couch, Renjun was slightly crushing his arm and the feeling of his breath against his neck tickled, but he couldn’t find the strength to care. Renjun made him weak. 

(Jeno would eventually return from the bathroom and fall asleep on the floor by the couch, hand interlaced with Jaemin’s as he fell into his own drowse.) 

\---

Renjun had been painting since his mother gave him a crayola watercolor set as a reward for being good at the doctor’s office when he was six. He hadn’t cried when they gave him his vaccines; he had been too busy counting the frogs on the wallpaper to notice the needle going into his upper arm. However, the soreness following had left him teary-eyed and whiny, so Renjun’s mother sought for a distraction. 

Renjun spent that entire day painting frogs. They had each looked exactly the same: like meaningless green blobs. It was like Renjun had become an industrial green-blob-making-machine. He cranked them out one after the other, presenting them to his mother with a crooked smile as she wearily added his new creation to the many others on the fridge. He had to get more creative when he ran out of green. 

At seventeen, Renjun hadn’t changed all that much. Sure, he had fancy acrylic paints and an easel and ten years of experience, but the obsessiveness had never left him. 

Renjun painted self portraits. Or, more accurately, he painted his own brain. 

Sometimes it was grey and sometimes it was pink. Once it was lavender and suspended in a jar full of green. Sometimes it was big and took up an entire canvas, each sulcus a canyon and each gyrus a mountain. Sometimes it was smaller than the tip of a pencil. 

The brains didn’t get hung up on the fridge. The fridge was reserved for nice things like Christmas cards and custom magnets. There was no place for Renjun’s gruesome brains on the fridge. But strangely enough, there was a place for his picture, the one from middle school graduation where he poses solemnly against the brick wall of his old school. 

Renjun wondered why, if the brain held virtually everything that made him  _ him _ , it still wasn’t allowed on the fridge. 

After all, that boy in the picture isn’t anything but a brain in a suit. 

\---

Renjun was eighteen when he came to terms with the fact that he had fallen in love. Twice and at the same time. 

It didn’t scare him, but he felt like collapsing. What really scared him was that Jeno and Jaemin would be there if he did. 

All the feelings made him sick.

Jaemin had recently taken up work at the diner. He now lived with an old married couple in the decrepit apartment across the road after his parents kicked him out for being gay. He insisted that they were very nice and there was no need to worry about him, but Renjun watched as Jaemin started to wither like a parched flower. He needed love to thrive. 

“Stop working,” Renjun commanded. It was just them in the diner, working late hours because Renjun’s aunt would give them a bigger bonus come Christmastime. “You’re fucking exhausted and I’m offended that you think I can’t tell.”

Jaemin smiled at him fondly, knowingly. It was smug and Renjun hated it. He hated that Jaemin knew exactly what was going on in his head. Bastard. 

“Let me just finish washing up this round of dishes,” he said cautiously, like Renjun could snap at any moment. “It wouldn’t be good if we didn’t have any plates to serve the food on, right?”

“I’m closing,” Renjun said shortly. “I’m closing the restaurant right now, and if you pick up one more fucking plate you will regret it for the rest of your life, Na Jaemin.”

“Renjun!” Jaemin called after him as he stomped out to the front and flipped the sign on the door to  _ closed.  _ “Renjun, you can’t just close the restaurant because you want me to take a load off!” Jaemin was angry but he couldn’t do much with his hands covered in soap suds. 

“Yes, I can.” Renjun folded his arms stubbornly. “I just did.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jaemin frowned as he wiped his hands dry with a kitchen towel. “I’m fine. You can’t close up a twenty-four-hour diner, Renjunnie. We have customers that expect service.”

“Why do you think I give a shit about the customers when you’ve been working nearly nonstop for God knows how long?” Renjun was yelling at this point. It was less because of anger and more because if he pretended to be angry, he was less likely to start crying. “How much rent are you paying at that dingy nursing facility you call an apartment anyways? Just because baby boomers Bob and Linda make you food and coo over how cute you are doesn’t mean you owe them this much. Get a grip.” 

“They’re retired,” Jaemin shuffled his feet and broke Renjun’s eye contact. “They don’t get enough from the government and they say if I don’t pay the rent, they’ll be on the streets.”

“So you went from one abusive household to another,” Renjun bites back. He was furious. Absolutely seeing red. But it wasn’t because of Jaemin, it was because the world wasn’t kind enough to people as loving and sincere as Jaemin. Karma sure seemed like a crock of bullshit right now. The Beatles were on some seriously powerful hallucinogens when they said that  _ in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. _

“Turn the sign back, Renjun.”

“No.” 

“Turn it back or I’ll do it myself.”

“No. I’m doing this for you. Now, sit in one of the booths and I’ll make you some tea. Do you want soup, too? I hardly believe  _ Linda _ is feeding you because your cheeks are so sunken you practically look like-- mfmph!”

Jaemin had slapped a hand over his mouth before he could even notice him walking over. 

“Stop talking, Renjun. I know you’re trying to do a good thing but we need to stay open. I’m not going to steal money from your aunt.” He removed his hand from Renjun’s mouth and started for the door, but Renjun wasn’t going to let him win that easily. 

“Why won’t you let anyone take care of you?” Renjun’s voice cracked pathetically, so he cleared his throat before continuing. “You’re always taking care of people, but you won’t let me. Why? It hurts, Jaem. You’re hurting me.”

That seemed to have gotten to him. Renjun watched as his frown softened into something less angry and more troubled. And yet, Jaemin still flipped the sign on the door back to  _ open,  _ and Renjun knew he had lost. “I’ve lost a lot, Renjun. I’ve lost just about everything that is dear to me. But I still haven’t lost my pride.”

“Fuck your pride,” Renjun marched up to Jaemin, who seemed mildly alarmed by the advance. Renjun thought in the back of his mind how it must look like he was about to take a swing. “Why is accepting my love a loss of pride?”

“What?”

Renjun shrugged. “I said I love you.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” Renjun said exasperatedly. “With my whole heart… or actually… my brain.”

Renjun felt emboldened by Jaemin’s glaze-eyed stare. He was usually the one frozen into stillness by Jaemin and his smile and his flirtatious words. But the tables had turned, and Renjun wanted to take advantage of his newfound upper hand. 

So, Renjun shoved him against the door of the diner and kissed him silly. 

Renjun had never kissed anyone other than Jeno. He had been his first. He had learned the nuances, the do’s, and the absolutely-don’ts with Jeno. He knew his kisses like the back of his hand. He knew where to bite, how deep to delve, when to be coy, and when to be shameless. Kissing Jeno was a mastered skill. 

Kissing Jaemin was out of his depth, and he was drowning in it. 

He was soft. He kissed Renjun like he was slipping through his fingers. It wasn’t about simple physical comforts. It was Jaemin conveying every bit of affection he had for him. And Renjun felt it like a tremor starting from the split ends of his hair down to his toes. 

Renjun quickly realized that even though he wasn’t the one pressed against a door, he had relinquished his power to Jaemin the moment their lips met. That was okay with him. Renjun would give him anything. Renjun would worship him like a God if he asked. 

Jaemin’s arms circled around his waist and pulled him close. He held him firmly, like he was afraid Renjun might run away if he loosened his grip. 

Renjun bit Jaemin’s lip. It was a trick he learned with Jeno. It drove him absolutely insane every time, and he hoped Jaemin would appreciate it too. A breathy whine confirmed that he did. 

“Renjun,” Jaemin mumbled against his lips, arms unraveling from around his waist to place his palms on his chest like he was going to push him away. Renjun breaks. 

“If you’re about to tell me we need to get back to work I will murder you.”

“No,” Jaemin panted. Renjun liked the look of his lips when they were wet. They were usually so dry. “I just… I love you, too. But you knew that, right?” 

“Yeah, I know.” Renjun flipped the sign to  _ closed.  _ “Now, are you going to kiss me again?” 

Jaemin complied.

\---

Renjun was eighteen when he willingly went to a sporting event for the first time. 

He had a sign in his hands and paint on his cheeks. They were both blue, for the Ravens, but Renjun’s cheeks and nose burned red from the cold January air. 

He wondered how Jeno felt. He was wearing only shorts and his jersey. Was he cold too? Did the exercise keep his blood running fresh and hot? Or was it the adrenaline? Whatever it was, Jeno seemed unbothered by the subzero temperatures. 

“GO LEE JENO!” Jaemin was yelling right into his ear and he felt it ring. Renjun had painted blue stars all over Jaemin’s face, but they flaked every time he smiled. It looked like Jaemin had a lapful of blue cherry blossoms. 

Renjun whooped and held the poster higher. He shook it in the air and willed Jeno to just take one little glance over at them. He didn’t. He was clearly too engrossed in the game to focus on his two dorky boyfriends in the stands. 

The score was 6-4. The Ravens were losing. But Renjun could tell that much just by the way Jeno stood stiff and jaw clenched. He looked like a wire ready to snap. Renjun would find it hot if he wasn’t so concerned about dealing with a grumpy Jeno after the match.

He had gotten a generous sports scholarship to the university in their neighboring city. He cried when the letter came. He was sure no one would take him due to his poor reading/writing score on the SAT. He had grown up speaking Korean, and the twisted nuances of English never came easily to him. He owed his university for taking the chance on him, and he didn’t want them to regret it. Renjun could tell how much the losing score taunted him. 

He thought soccer was the only thing he was good at, and there he was, failing. 

“LEE JENO I BELIEVE IN YOU,” Renjun screamed at the top of his lungs. This time, Jeno turned around. It didn’t take him long for his eyes to find the big  _ GO #12  _ sign at the front of the stands. It had blue hearts painted around it, courtesy of Jaemin. His posture softened and his jaw unclenched to allow a smile. He quickly waved before jogging over to where his team had formed a huddle. 

“What are we gonna do if he loses?” Jaemin leaned over and asked in his ear. 

“We don’t have to worry about that,” Renjun replied. “He’s not going to lose.” 

Jaemin smiled and a star fluttered from his cheek. “Yeah, you’re right. But I still think we should do something nice for him. Maybe we could take him to the cat café on second street? Before we have to go back.” 

A whistle blow brought them back to the game. Jeno had the ball, and he was running with it. Renjun and Jaemin watched with rapt attention as he ran, ran, ran, ran... 

and goal. 

Renjun screamed louder than he ever had before, and the rest of Jaemin’s stars fell to the earth. 

\---

Renjun exercised his emotions like a muscle. 

He cupped the delicate leaves of his house plants and watered them like their vitality was his own. He watched horror movies alone and let his heart beat out of his chest. He looked at pictures of Jeno and let himself miss him until he could barely breathe between his sobs. 

He allowed himself the vulnerability to fall head over heels for two boys at once. Renjun had assumed it would be impossible, but he had come to realize that every little thing to do with Jeno and Jaemin was downright phenomenal. He was certain that the universe had been kind enough to gift him the only two boys in the world that could reach him underneath all his skin and flesh and bone. That alone was enough to convert any cynicist. 

However, it seemed the universe was just sticking the knife in, simply ensuring that it would hurt when it was twisted. 

Renjun hadn’t seen Jeno in five months, ever since the victorious soccer game in January. 

He spent almost every night with Jaemin, fending off Bob and Linda who never seemed to get the hint that Jaemin wasn’t responsible for financing their retirement. His clothes were all there, intermingled with Jaemin’s in his closet or strewn haphazardly on the floor. To an unknowing eye, it would seem as though they live stewing in their own messiness, but it was a methodical madness. Dirty clothes go on the floor, clean clothes in the closet, plants crammed on the windowsill, bedsheets chronically crumpled. And, of course, Renjun and Jaemin amidst it all. Everything had a place, and everything was in its place. Well, except for Jeno. He was displaced by nearly 100 miles. 

“Renjunnie, please just come to bed,” Jaemin’s voice brought Renjun out of his musings. “You’ll regret it later if you don’t sleep now.” 

He was right, of course. Jaemin always seemed to know what was best for him. They were preparing to work late again that night. The sun shone through their curtains, too translucent to hide the fact that the rest of the world was living their lives outside their window. Jeno was out living his life under that sun. Renjun wondered what he might be doing at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. He might be in a long lecture, drumming his pencil against his notebook like how he used to do in literature class. He might be practicing under the harsh sunlight, sweating and cursing at the clouds. Maybe he was eating. Renjun hoped that was so. 

“Jaemin, I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” Renjun said into the empty space. He wasn’t crying, and he wasn’t broken. It was simply the same cold, unspoken truth laid out in the open. It didn’t hurt any more or less than before, but acknowledgement was the next step to something much scarier: confrontation. 

“Do what?” Jaemin asked softly, reaching his hand out for Renjun to take. He did, allowed himself to be pulled onto the bed, but stayed above the covers. 

“You know what, Jaem,” Renjun said exasperatedly. Jaemin had the frustrating ability to ignore the most obvious of problems and call it optimism. “We haven’t seen him in months. He barely calls or texts anymore. I love him, but what is that worth if I can’t share it with him?”

“It’s worth everything, Renjun,” Jaemin replied, his voice adopting an angry edge. “It means that you’ll wait. That  _ we  _ will wait because love is worth it. It hurts sometimes, but think about him. Isn’t he worth it?”

Renjun responded without a second of thought. “Yes, he is.” He looked down at his hands tangled in the beige sheets. His eyes focus on a stain and he holds them there so he doesn’t have to face Jaemin. He feels guilty and weak. “But I don’t want it to hurt anymore. I don’t want love to _ hurt. _ ”

“Come here,” Jaemin whispered, and Renjun’s eyes were torn from the duvet as he was pulled into Jaemin’s embrace. “The first step is to sleep. I promise it won’t hurt for much longer. Just sleep.”

“You can’t promise that, Jaemin,” Renjun said coldly, flipping onto his other side, where he wouldn’t have to see the look on his boyfriend’s face. “You can’t just keep telling me things will be okay when you don’t know. It’ll just make things worse later on when they’re not.”

“But I do know things are going to be okay!” Jaemin said, and the bed dipped as he propped himself up on his elbows to look at Renjun. “You need to stop catastrophizing everything and be patient, okay?” 

“How am I catastrophizing?” Renjun turned over to look at Jaemin and raised his voice. “I’m telling you the truth, and the truth is that this is painful. There’s nothing hyperbolic about that statement, Jaemin. You both know how much I’ve struggled my whole life. How I’ve struggled with feeling love like everybody else and how I’ve struggled feeling like I belong in my own skin,” Renjun looked down at his hands, afraid that they might be fading. He takes his right hand, the one with the birthmark, and rests it on Jaemin’s chest. Solid as a heartbeat. 

“Let's leave then,” Jaemin said, taking the hand on his chest and intertwining their fingers. “I have money saved up, and I bet Jeno does too from when he was coaching youth soccer. We can find an apartment over the summer when Jeno is out of school.”

“You're saying we go… live in the city?” 

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“With Jeno?”

“Yes.”

Renjun paused to think for a moment. 

“I would really like that,” Renjun said, squeezing Jaemin’s hand. “I want to be with him. I want to be with you both.”

“You will be, okay?” Jaemin said, lowering his head back onto the pillow. “Let’s sleep. We can’t make our escape if we don’t have the energy to work for it.” 

With the sun blazing against his eyelids, Renjun dreamt of Jaemin and Jeno on the grass, belly-up with a bottle of orange vodka. 

\---

At twenty-two years old, Renjun awoke every morning with the sound of breathing by his ear. It was a low hum, a background noise that your brain learns to ignore. But Renjun was used to defying the whims of his own brain, and he heard every inhale, every exhale. 

Jeno was already gone. He rose before the sun nearly every morning to train at the gym. Yet, Renjun could convince himself that he could feel the light brush of his breath on the back of his neck. 

Sometimes, it began to feel unreal. He felt isolated. Like even though he was there, somehow he wasn’t. Like his reality had been shifted in very minute ways, but enough for him to feel out of place. Wrong. Fading. 

In those moments, Renjun did not love Jeno and Jaemin. Or, at least, it didn’t feel like he did. He was not the right Renjun. He had become the wrong, faded Renjun, who could only feel the weight of his own limbs. 

It usually didn’t last long. Reality has the tendency to phase in much quicker than it phases out. 

They grounded him, Jeno and Jaemin. Just from a glance, a brush of fingertips, the sound of their voices, Renjun would remember himself. 

It was a blessing, really. Renjun didn’t have a God to whom he could say grace, so he bowed to the way Jaemin kissed his hair with coffee breath, or the way Jeno smiled at him with eyes wiser than his years. 

“Renjun!” Jeno’s voice boomed angrily from the doorway. 

_ He just got home and I’m already in trouble _ , Renjun thought with a small sigh. 

“You can’t be painting in here without  _ all  _ the windows open,” Jeno storms into the living room with a scowl. Renjun is on the newspaper-covered floor, bent over a huge canvas and surrounded by paints and brushes. “You and Pepper are gonna die from the fumes one day!” Jeno stomps around the room and opens all the windows, making sure to make as much noise as possible while doing so. 

“Jeno, it’s freezing outside,” Renjun sighed and set his brush in the muddy cup of water to his left. “If we don’t die from paint fumes, it’ll be of hypothermia.” 

“Renjun, we have a baby now. She’s fragile, we need to take care of her…” Jeno picked up Pepper, their new rescue cat, from her perch on the arm of the couch, and cradled her lovingly. 

“You haven’t looked at me like that in months,” Renjun huffed and got up, his bones cracking unpleasantly. He realized then just how long he had spent hunkered over his artwork. He stretched his fingers up, stood on his tippy toes and felt his fingertips brush the ceiling. 

“You know that’s not true,” Jeno rolled his eyes and set Pepper down on the floor. She hopped back up on the couch and snuggled in like a royal returning to her throne. “Is it almost done?” Jeno peeked over his shoulder at the canvas. 

“I think so…” Renjun said hesitantly. “It’s missing something. It’s not right.”

It was another brain, big in the center of the canvas. It was Renjun’s first ever commission. He received a bit of attention from his special feature in the ‘Rising Artists’ column of the newspaper. Only a day later, he got an offer from a wealthy self-proclaimed art connoisseur. He wanted a brain. A big, grotesque one. He saw Renjun’s art as a conversation starter, something to make his guests squirm in discomfort. A brain that’ll end up cooked over his grand fireplace. 

“I think it’s breathtaking,” Jeno said casually over his shoulder. He leaned over and pecked Renjun on the cheek before wandering into the kitchen. He was rambling about something-- maybe it was school or soccer or Pepper, but Renjun found himself touching his cheek, buffering in the past and unable to catch up with the present. 

When Jaemin came home that night, it was to the sight of Renjun hunched over the canvas, shirtless and furiously swiping with his paintbrush. It was a stark contrast to the way he usually made his art, with gentle strokes and careful movements. He was breathing heavily, his hair mussed and eyes bleary. 

“Renjun?” 

“Don’t talk to me tonight,” Renjun said without looking up. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” 

Renjun didn’t go to bed that night, too absorbed in his work to notice the ticking of the clock, and the subsequent darkening and lightening of the sky. Eventually, he let out the breath he had been holding. He set his paintbrush down. Rubbed his tired eyes with paint-covered hands. They were streaked with a buttercup yellow, and Renjun had never loved his hands more. He noticed the cold mug of jasmine tea beside him, and drank it in three gulps. 

Jeno and Jaemin walked out of the bedroom hesitantly, Pepper lazing in Jaemin’s embrace. As soon as Renjun saw them, he wiped the tears he hadn’t realized were there, and ran to them, throwing himself into their arms. Pepper was displaced onto the floor with a dissatisfied meowl. 

“Missed you guys,” Renjun said sleepily into Jaemin’s neck. 

“Jeno, can you take him to bed? I need to get to work,” Jaemin said in a whisper, hoping Renjun wouldn’t hear in his state of delirium. 

“Jaem… Look,” Jeno said, his eyes wide and trained on the canvas spread out on their living room floor. 

“What is it?” Jaemin looked over at the painting, still shining with fresh paint. His breath caught in his throat. “Oh, wow.”

Laid in the center of their tiny apartment; in the center of the city; in the center of the solar system, was a self portrait. A portrait of a yellow boy holding a birthday candle, smoke floating from the wick, with a smile so wide it looked as though all his wishes had already come true. There was no brain to be seen, only a mop of hair made of the brightest buttercup yellow. 

Renjun sighed against Jaemin’s ear, and he felt Jeno’s hand intertwine with his. Outside, the sun was rising, and the cloudless winter sky bathed the apartment in pink light. 

Renjun was not just a brain. He was a boy, a lover, an artist. Body as big as a planet, and soul as vast as an ancient forest. Renjun was all the love he’s given and all the love he’s received. He was the green tea he drinks in the morning and the kisses he’s laid on his lovers’ skin. 

The rich commissioner rejected the piece. It was not the ugly, provocative work of art he had wanted it to be. 

Renjun sent it to his brother, Sicheng, along with a note written in blue ink…

  
  
  
  


_ When we have a moment to get away from our busy lives, let’s go to the aquarium. I’d like to see everything I missed out on. _

**Author's Note:**

> hope you found some comfort/meaning/joy from this fic. It was a nice distraction for me. Most of the descriptions of Renjun's mental health struggles come from my personal struggles with dissociation and research into depersonalization disorder. If anyone finds my writing to misrepresent these struggles, I'm very sorry, and I would be happy to hear your thoughts in the comments for future reference. thank you for reading... listen to renra, stay healthy, find happiness in the big and small <3


End file.
